Thin films can be used to improve the surface properties of materials, enhancing elements such as absorption, abrasion resistance and corrosion resistance, for example. These thin films provide the foundation for a variety of applications in various fields and their applications depend
on their morphology and stability, which is influenced by how they are deposited. Thin films can be deposited in different ways. One of these is a technology called atomic layer deposition (ALD). Professor Fumihiko Hirose, a scientist based at the Graduate School of Science and Engineering,
Yamagata University, Japan, is conducting research on the room temperature ALD of oxide metals. Along with his team, Professor Hirose has developed a new and improved way of performing ALD to create thin films, and the potential applications are endless.